


The Rotation

by Boton



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Canon Backstory, Domestic Violence (Mentioned), Episode: s03e03 His Last Vow, Gen, Hospitalization, Hurt Sherlock, Hurt/Comfort, Missing Scene, Serious Injuries, Sherlock Needs Supervision
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-14
Updated: 2015-12-14
Packaged: 2018-05-06 14:28:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5420573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Boton/pseuds/Boton
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Sherlock woke up in hospital after Mary shot him in Charles Augustus Magnussen’s office - dizzy and disoriented from opiates given both during and after surgery, and with a searing pain in his midsection that neither the painkillers nor the bandages could hide – he thought that he would never feel as absolutely abysmal ever again.</p><p>That was until the second time he woke up in hospital.</p><p>A possible missing scene from HLV wrapped around a "how they met" scene for Sherlock and Molly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Rotation

**Author's Note:**

> Rated T for mentioned of domestic violence. 
> 
> Please take that warning seriously. There's nothing terribly graphic in here, and none of our characters are involved in the domestic violence incident, but it's still there. And, if I've done my job as a writer, your mind could fill in the missing pieces and create a vision of what happened to the victim. I tried to keep things under control because the specifics of the crime are not really the point of the story, but if you are easily triggered by that topic, you might want to give this a pass.
> 
> Disclaimer: Sherlock Holmes and his universe are the creation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Sherlock is the creation of the BBC and its partners, and of co-creators Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss. This work is for my pleasure and that of my readers; I am not profiting from the intellectual property of those creators listed above.

When Sherlock woke up in hospital after Mary shot him in Charles Augustus Magnussen’s office - dizzy and disoriented from opiates given both during and after surgery, and with a searing pain in his midsection that neither the painkillers nor the bandages could hide – he thought that he would never feel as absolutely abysmal ever again.

That was until the _second_ time he woke up in hospital, this time with a profound sense of physical insult added to existing injury. He knew from how his body felt that tender flesh, just beginning to heal from the initial surgery, had been ruthlessly cut, the incision stretched open to give access. Something deep inside him managed to feel both bruised and cut at the same time, and the slightest movement of his chest made his ribs hurt, like someone had used them for a trampoline. He started to think that no human being had ever felt so miserable in their entire life, then immediately stopped himself. Such thoughts seemed to be tantamount to daring the universe to prove him wrong, and he wasn’t sure he’d live through another round that the universe won.

As it all came back to him – the confrontation in Leinster Gardens, the terrible tension-filled fight in 221B, the ambulance ride during which he could sodding _feel_ the blood pooling in his chest – he slit his eyes open and looked over to the side of the bed at the blurry figure sitting there. Ah, at least some things were going as expected. Even though his eyes were taking some time to focus, he certainly recognized the hideous jumper, the trash paperback in hand, and the slumped posture that spoke of too long sitting in that same chair. As he opened his mouth to speak, the figure beat him to it.

“Well, that was dumb.”

The voice. That wasn’t John’s voice. Why wasn’t that John’s voice? That’s what John did; John patched Sherlock up after his near misses, and, when he couldn’t, he sat at Sherlock’s side and waited until he woke up. But this voice was higher, softer, but somehow no less steely.

“Molly?” he asked. He cleared his throat, tried again. “Molly? Where’s John?”

Molly had risen from her chair, put her paperback down – Sherlock could now see the lurid pink typeface marking it as some sort of chick lit fiction – and come to the head of Sherlock’s bed. She expertly raised the head of his bed two clicks, being careful not to bring him to a sitting position that would hurt his wounds but elevating him enough for a sip of the water she poured and held for him. Then, she reached across the bed, turned the IV stand a bit more her direction so she could check the infusion rates, and dropped her other hand to Sherlock’s wrist briefly, satisfying herself of the strength, or maybe just the presence, of his pulse.

“He went home. Not his turn to watch you. I’m up on the rotation.”

Sherlock chuckled softly, amused that Molly could make a joke at a time like this. Often, she got so tongue-tied, but not tonight. His amusement was brief, however, as even the small laugh jostled him just enough to send a searing pain along an incision that he now suspected went nearly all the way across his chest. Molly bumped the PCA and then sat carefully on the end of Sherlock’s bed. Sherlock tried again.

“But, it’s always John who,” he began, feeling the cold rush of the morphine hit his bloodstream, the slight disorientation as the opiate began to take effect, making him feel a bit off-center and fragmented even as it started to dull the pain.

“Yes,” Molly interrupted. “It’s always John who has to help put you back together. But he’s already done that this time.” Molly’s voice was firm but kind, with a confidence he had heard occasionally since the day that she helped him plan his Fall.

“He told me what happened. John and I don’t have secrets any more where you’re concerned. Too dangerous,” she said with a quick smile. “He’s already done his bit. He rode with you in the ambulance and sat and waited and worried through surgery, and then he called me. He needs a break. And it sounds like he’s got a fair mess to clean up at home. Poor guy,” she ended with a whisper, looking down at her hands. “Besides, I’ve got some experience with putting you back together too,” she added, still not meeting his eyes.

Sherlock didn’t say anything; right now, just breathing was challenging enough. But, he thought, Molly had a point.

***

Of all of the people in his life – he hardly dared to use the word “friend,” even to himself – he had known Molly longer than most. She had just started working in the morgue at Bart’s when he was living on Montague Street and using drugs regularly. He harassed and badgered and deduced her, trying to get the new girl to allow him access to those gleaming labs. Such sessions often ended with Molly in tears but with Sherlock still standing on the wrong side of the morgue door.

Gradually, though, he had fought his way off the drugs, finding that one of the sergeants – Gareth or Gary or something – would give him access off the record to a few cases, but only if he were stone sober. It seemed a silly request, since Sherlock knew that even when he was high he could think rings around the other officers sober, but he figured it was a chance to pull back some on a habit than even he acknowledged had gotten a bit out of control.

He started going to the morgue at night and, surprisingly, Molly started letting him in. After explaining to him multiple times that there was really no such thing as “leftovers” from an autopsy, she started letting him experiment on the cadavers that the med students had finished with. Nothing dramatic, and nothing that would hinder a respectful burial – she was firm on that point – but she told him that a few tissue samples and range of motion experiments couldn’t do much more harm than the students had already done.

This changed the night he came by and she was alone, working the night shift as she often did at the start of her career. That night, she was standing over a female body, just beginning an autopsy, her mouth held in a tight line. She looked up as Sherlock came in, prepared to wheedle, flirt, or deduce his way into participating, whichever strategy seemed to increase his chances most.

“You need to see this one,” she said grimly. He smiled brightly and grabbed for some gloves when she reached over and stilled his hands. 

“See,” she said with a quaver in her voice but also with a hint of steel he’d never heard before. “Not touch. You need to see this, but you will sit there on that stool and watch and not touch her. She’s been through enough.”

Sherlock was surprised enough to do as he was told, and then he looked over at the body. Evidence of bruising, abrasion, and healed scars mottled the body. Molly looked up before she began her incision. 

“If she had had a home, we would have called her a domestic violence victim,” she said softly. “Since she lived on the streets, no one much cares. But it’s pretty clear that her partner beat her regularly, and, last night, he beat her to death.”

Molly looked up and met Sherlock’s eyes, an uncommon occurrence. “You want to solve crimes? You need to see this. You need to see what happens to the body when someone hits, and cuts, and chokes it. You need to see what happens to internal organs when a bat or a pipe is used. You need to see what happens when the killing happens slowly, maybe over the course of years. Whoever did this to her, they didn’t just start doing it last night. They’ve been doing it a long time, and last night was just the final straw. You need to know what this looks like because what you want to do can keep this from happening.”

It took a lot to silence Sherlock, but that night he was quiet, listening to Molly tell him about how the body responds to insult and injury. He catalogued ways the body could live and ways it might die. He also catalogued a few things about Molly, with her soft voice and shy demeanor and hideous taste in figure-hiding jumpers.

***

“You’re not listening to a word I said,” Molly said. Sherlock dragged his eyes over to her face, cocking an eyebrow in tired agreement.

“I said, you don’t have to do what you do alone. That’s the mistake you made last night, and it almost cost you your life. You have people in your life who care about you, and we’re willing to help. And, for a while, we’re going to help by making sure you stay in that bed and heal.”

Molly stood up from the edge of the bed, being sure not to jostle Sherlock and cause any additional pain. He was getting tired; the few minutes of alertness combined with the shock, blood loss, and ridiculous amount of drugs conspired to pull him toward sleep. He shivered lightly; he couldn’t stand the thought of anything resting on his injured chest, and, indeed, his blankets were pulled only to the waist, but his arms and shoulders were chilled. Without a word, Molly went outside the room to where the warmed blankets were kept and brought one back. She helped Sherlock lift his shoulders just a bit so that she could slide the blanket behind and wrap it around him, then helped him settle back. She straightened his lines and reached up to brush a curl off his forehead as he looked out the window at the London skyline, just now touched with the light of dawn. 

“Hello, Greg,” she said softly as Lestrade walked into the room carrying a cup of coffee and a copy of _The Times_. 

“Molly,” Lestrade said in greeting. “We make it through the night OK?”

“We did just fine,” Sherlock said, but he was too tired to give the words the sarcastic bite he had intended. 

“I see His Highness is awake then,” Lestrade said, settling into the visitor’s chair and propping his feet up.

“Not for long, I don’t think,” Molly said fondly.

“So there really is a rotation,” Sherlock mumbled, his eyes already closed.

“Yep,” Molly agreed. “This time, you’re going to have some help, whether you want it or not.”

At that, Sherlock reopened his eyes long enough to roll them at her, and Molly smiled.

“And don’t make me add Mycroft to the list,” she said as she gathered her coat to leave. Sherlock just shuddered once before dropping back off to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> So, this whole story popped into my mind in response to a discussion going on at sherlockforum.com, where we were talking about the way certain ACD canon lines have been handed to Molly to deliver, making her sort of "another Watson" in Sherlock's life. While none of those lines appear here, I liked to play with the idea of John and Molly serving analogous purposes in Sherlock's life.


End file.
